Wednesday, November 9, 2011

MAYBE YOU SHOULD PASS ON THE CHICKEN LIVERS

Personally, I never trust the so-called "ready-to-eat" products of all kinds that are so popular in the food supply of industrialized nations like the U.S. If I do buy them, which I don't very often, I end up cooking them anyway. It's safer. Sometimes, ready-to-eat is not ready-to-eat.

Take the present recall of ready-to-eat broiled chicken liver products. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA/FSIS) announced today that Schreiber Processing Corporation, of Maspeth, New York, is recalling an undetermined amount of broiled chicken liver products. Apparently they have been linked to a cluster of at least 169 Salmonellosis illnesses, mainly in New Jersey and New York. These livers were meant to be fully cooked. But, oops, they turned out not to be fully cooked after all. Salmonella Heidelburg - one of the worst Samonella bacteria - was found lurking in them.

The products were distributed to retail stores and institutional users in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. They were distributed in large 10lb bags, and apparently had a Meal Mart label, but who knows what label they were finally sold under, or what institutional purchasers did with them. When available, the retail distribution list(s) will be posted on the FSIS website at: www.fsis.usda.gov/FSIS_Recalls
/Open_Federal_Cases/index.asp.

By the way, my research suggests that this company also supplies airline meals. I looked at their airline menu, and it sounds a lot better than anything I eat on a plane these days. But I think I'll just pack a home-made sandwich for my next trip.

And maybe it's better just to pass on the chopped chicken livers or anything else to do with chicken livers for a while till they find and destroy all these products (that is, when they haven't already been eaten).